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Thank you for doing more with one post to raise the level of discourse in the comics community than the whole blogosphere could manage in years, and for owning your work and responding to criticism thoughtfully and respectfully, and for putting a lot of thought into the stories you write even while recognizing that intention doesn’t always translate to end product.

The interwebs have been all a-flutter of late with the news that Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment. Everyone’s got their panties (and the tights beneath) bunched up with worry, wondering if Spidey’s gonna sprout mouse ears or Wolverine will still be allowed to say “Fuck” in MAX titles.

*Yawn*

Actually, I wasn’t going to write about this at all. But then, I woke up yesterday with a link to the NYT article in my inbox, accompanied by the following note:

Hi, Rachel. What do you make of this? (Note the gender slant that the article describes.)

And far be it from me to leave my public hanging (Hi, Dad!). So, here’s what I think.

1. Not much is going to change at Marvel Comics. You’ll see more ads for Disney properties. There might be a cross-over event at some point, and people will laugh and play along, and it’ll be sucky or mediocre or surprisingly awesome, and things will basically stay status quo, but probably with slightly better benefit packages.

2. Disney will begin to use Marvel properties to develop their lines for boys, especially tween boys. Disney’s been struggling with this elusive boy demographic for a long time (much as Marvel has been known to struggle with the “lady-creature” demographic), and Marvel comes with a set of iconic but versatile characters with strong brand identification who resonate with exactly the group Disney’s trying to wrap its grubby mouse-fingers around.

3. This is where the gender thing comes in, because Disney is specifically looking to develop Marvel properties as boys’ entertainment. To an extent, this is exactly what Marvel has been doing with them, although Marvel’s target demographic is arguably even narrower. On one hand, I’m peeved that Disney’s approach seems to mostly involve reinforcing the fallacy that superheroes are for boys (girls, of course, get princesses and Hannah Montana.). On the other hand, I’m still glad to see the demographic for Marvel superheroes widening–and, if nothing else, I know Disney’s too calculating and ruthless not to see opportunities to market across gender lines.

4. Yeah, I have some Disney issues. I grew up in South Florida. It’s pretty much inevitable. I mean, they have this whole charter town called “Celebration,” and at orchestra competitions, their whole orchestra would be outfitted in matching ballgowns and tuxedoes. Bizarre.

5. Also, I’m interested in seeing how this is going to affect the villains in animated Marvel films. When I did research last year on gender transgressive villains in comics, I found comparatively few in the Marvel ranks who fit the Disney drag queen mold described by Meredith Li-Vollmer and Mark E. LaPointe in their 2003 study “Gender Transgression and Villainy in Animated Film.” It’ll be interesting how much of the visual design of the children’s and teen programming and products will be informed by Marvel versus Disney sensibilities.

6. Going back a bit: for all its faults, Disney is fantastic at marketing to and developing products for the ladies. Sure, Disney’s the evil empire, but it’s gotten there by being very, very good at what it does. And, honestly, I doubt they can fuck it up much worse than Marvel has been. Spider-Man lip gloss, my ass.

7. If any of the drones of Disney’s amorphous hive-mind happens to be reading this: A Power Pack Saturday morning cartoon would rock really hard.

8. Of course Wolverine will still get to say “fuck” in MAX titles. If no one could use naughty words in a property produced by a Disney-owned company, the porn industry would have to put a lot more time and energy into developing colorful metaphors.

Feeling drab and dowdy? Tearing your hair out in search of a stylin’ new look for SDCC? Worry no more, true believers, because, as it turns out, Marvel wants to help you look stylish!

For the gents, they have an assortment of superhero costumes–most with built-in muscles. And for the gals…well, there’s…

Wait for it…

Lip gloss.

How, exactly, is lip gloss supposed to be analogous to superhero costumes? Is it perhaps super lip gloss, with the power to imbue its wearers with the reflexes and proportional strength of a tube of lip gloss? Let’s turn to Dogulas Miller, marketing coordinator for Lotta Luv (the cosmetics company with whom Marvel teamed to produce not only lip gloss but an entire line of Marvel make-up), for some enlightening commentary:

“With a branded line of make-up from Marvel, girls will be able to feel as if they are going from ordinary to extraordinary just like the super hero characters in the stories, ” he explained. “There is also such a nostalgic undertone that either young or older girls are drawn towards because of the long history and brand behind the name Marvel.”

(Miller went on to defend his expertise in matters of the feminine mind, informing readers that his mother “totally used to be a girl,” and that once, while intoxicated, he had accidentally watched the opening credits of an episode of Sex In the City.)

“But wait!” you may argue. “They’re focusing on the lip gloss because it’s a new product! Surely their products aren’t that wildly gender-dimorphous!”

That’s very open-minded of you. In fact, I had the same initial reaction, which I attempted to validate via one of the article’s myriad links back to the Official Marvel Shop, stocked (the article claimed) with “numerous costumes (for kids and adults).”

Noticing a pattern here?
Of the 28 costumes in the Marvel Shop, 27 are of male characters. The 28th, the “Spider-Girl Sassy Deluxe Adult Costume,” is a sparkly little minidress that resembles Spider-Girl’s actual costume only in fabric pattern.

It doesn’t take a mind-reader (even one with the proportional strength of a tube of lip gloss) to figure out what’s going on here: between the lip gloss and the Divas, the writing on the wall is pretty clear–day-glo, even. In its decision to market directly to female readers, Marvel, like Wizard, seems to have adopted the philosophy that the population is divided into two groups: people, and women. In a few months, when they realize that girls are not rushing to buy Spider-Man lip gloss and Incredible Hulk tampons, expect Marvel to poutily insist that this is proof that women are not interested in comics.

The irony, of course, is that Marvel is a company whose comics, historically, have been extraordinarily girl-friendly. Ensemble casts, full of strong female characters, dominated the line for decades. Series like Runaways, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, and even Spider-Girl (despite its rocky history), drew the kinds of crowds of teen girls that Minx could only dream of. I cut my geek teeth on New Mutants and Excalibur, and they, in turn, defined my criteria for girl-friendly superhero comics. While the distinguished competition was stuck in ’50s gender sensibilities, Marvel books were passing the Bechdel Test with flying colors. Even the heroines clearly designed to titillate the straight male gaze (I’m thinking Emma Frost and the Goblin Queen) had personalities and dimensions beyond their skimpy costumes.

Marvel, I think it’s time you and I had a chat.

For the last couple years, you’ve been trying your little heart out to work your sticky fingers into the pockets of that elusive female demographic. Out of respect for what you used to represent to me, and in hopes that you’ll come to mean that again, I’m going to tell you how. No strings attached: this is a gift, from me to you.

-Don’t start a new line of products. Make small tweaks–like, say, making a decent X-Men or Avengers t-shirt that’s available in girls’ sizes–to customize your existing products for women. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, or even paint it pink; you just need to take it in a little at the waist and shoulders.

-By the same token, you don’t need to push contrived Sex In the City knock-offs to attract female readers. You’ve been producing really solid, character drama-focused books with fantastic female characters for years. If you want to widen your female audience, broaden the marketing, not the product. Bringing back the classic New Mutants is a great start, though.

-Make products featuring female characters–the real characters, not pinkified, defanged “saving the world can be glamorous!” versions of the characters (with the possible exception of Millie the Model, who could probably pull it off).

-Especially Storm.

-Talk to some actual girls and women. Ask them what they buy, what they look for in comics and licensed products, what comics they do and don’t read, and why or why not. Listen to their answers.

“Do you think the comic book industry, and its principal players, should be subject to the sort of public scrutiny and (at times) gossip that others in the entertainment field are subject to?”

I haven’t been among the respondents, because I am not important, and no one cares what I think.

But I’m going to tell you anyway.

I think it’s a slanted question, because it takes for granted that “the sort of public scrutiny and (at times) gossip that others in the entertainment industry are subject to” is appropriate.

I don’t.

Let me make something clear: I’m not supporting cloak-and-dagger secrecy here. I believe in accountability—public accountability where circumstances warrant. In fact, I agree, in principle, with most of the commentators, who discussed the importance of accountability and transparency in matters like creative responsibility, professional decorum, and business relations. In fact, I think most of those issues—and particularly those that involve exploitation and abuse, financial or otherwise—should probably get more coverage.

But that wasn’t the question. The question was,

“Do you think the comic book industry, and its principal players, should be subject to the sort of public scrutiny and (at times) gossip that others in the entertainment field are subject to?”

And to that, my answer is,

Absolutely not.

As far as I’m concerned, the parts of comics professionals lives that the public—and the industry at large—have any right to know about begin and end with the comics industry.

But that’s not as simple as it sounds, because comic people tend to socialize with, well, other comics people. We talk together. We drink together. We date each other. We embarrass ourselves in front of each other. And the lines between our personal and professional lives blur—which makes the answer to Val’s original question a hell of a lot more complicated. We can draw lines, sure—whom you date, for example, should be nobody’s business but your own—but there will always be exceptions: what about the editor who awards a competitive gig to the artist he’s involved with, or the couple whose divorce also means the dissolution of a creative team?

And so, to me, it comes down to a question of integrity and judgment.

If I thought any comics bloggers or journalists read this column, I would offer them the following challenge:

When you are deciding whether to report on a rumor or news item centering around a person or people (not, say, the release of a book, even if there are creator names attached to it), ask yourselves two questions:

What benefit would publicizing this item provide?
andWhat harm could it do?

What guides this decision shouldn’t be blog hits, or sensationalism, or laziness. It should be journalistic ethics, because when you are writing in your official capacity—even if it’s just at a personal blog—you are writing in the role of a journalist, and the weight you give the answers to those questions defines what is gossip, and what is news. And only one of those has a place in the public eye.

I think Wizard‘s choice of poll categories makes for an interesting lens through which to view a larger argument that’s taking place in the nets: whether, and to what extent, there can and should be “female superhero” movies. I’ve been wading around the trenches Jezebel comment threads, and much (but not all) of the coverage I’ve seen has echoed what I see as a kind of problematic assumption–the same one Wizard makes in their poll–that there is a fundamental difference between “superheroes” and “female superheroes.”

There isn’t. Or, at least, there doesn’t have to be. Female superheroes’ gender doesn’t magically supersede their jobs. They don’t automatically have to have Shoe Shopping and Relationship Drama in every story, any more than every male superhero story requires a rousing football scrimmage. The problem isn’t with the characters–it’s with our own assumptions about the categories into which they’re allowed to fall. For example, Kill Bill, despite its female protagonist, overwhelmingly female supporting cast and villains, and substantial female fanbase, is categorized as an action movie, not a “girl” movie–and, despite its protagonist’s colorful costume and iconic code name, certainly not a “female superhero” movie.

More significantly, though, Kill Bill doesn’t get categorized as a “female superhero” movie because it doesn’t fit the stereotypes we’ve come to associate with such movies. It’s not a poorly-produced b-grade write-off. It didn’t fail miserably. It wasn’t a stereotypical “chick flick” with a couple action scenes slapped on. And, incidentally, it starred a woman who had played an enthusiastic role in the creation of her character and story rather than brushing it–and the genre it reflected–off as kid stuff or a shitty dues role.

Today, the president of Dark Horse walked past another female editor and my (adjoining) offices and stopped to call in that he’d just learned that we don’t exist, because someone else (I didn’t catch who) has been going on about how there are no women in comics. In retrospect, I should have asked if that meant we could have the rest of the day off, but it also makes a nice segue into one of my pet peeves.

A lot of the problem with how sexism in comics is addressed in media, and one of the reasons those reports are so easy for the comics industry to blow off, is that the reports of sexism in comics are almost always built around the essential fallacy that there are no–or painfully few–women working in the comics industry.

This fallacy seems to stem from a couple main sources. First of all, when the general news media (and even a lot of more specialized media) reports on comics, it often does so with a conception of the industry that begins and ends with writers and artists on mainstream (read: superhero) titles–who are, in fact, overwhelmingly male (which is a problem, but not the same problem as which it’s often framed).

Second, the same media’s understanding and portray of comics seem to be based largely on the perpetuation of a stock of convenient sterotypes, with little attention to or examination of reality. Even generally comics-friendly articles are often full of astonishment that comics readers (and, to some extent, creators) aren’t all mouth-breathing recluses who subsist entirely on pizza and bondage fantasies in their parents’ basements–and, it should go without saying, all male.

Look, there are absolutely sexism (among other -isms) and misogyny in comics, and in the comics industry, and comics culture, and much of what passes for comics “journalism.” The majority of the creators who get high profile, highly paid art and writing gigs are male. Sexual harassment is rampant at conventions and comics shops (and within the industry, although that’s something I’ve not experienced first-hand). These things are terrible, and they need to be called out and addressed, loudly and persistently.

But not by ignoring the many, many women who make their living and art in comics. Every time we are conveniently erased because some pop-cult page needs an appropriately sensational headline, or some hack journalist or blogger decides to lionize the lady he’s profiling by painting her as a lone Amazon in Man’s World, we fade that much further into the gutters.

If I needed one word to describe Reagan, I’d go with “big.” She dominates every panel she appears in–and not just because of her ample body. I imagine her talking in a just-a-bit-louder-than-life voice and laughing the kind of belly laugh that makes me proud to be human.

I love Knights of the Shroud a whole lot. If you’ve been following this column for any length of time, you probably know that already. And now you know yet another part of why.

Reagan is gorgeous, which is part of how she fucks with our beauty standards. Anzu and Scar challenge them because they’re not pretty. They’re powerful, and regal, and damaged, and maybe even beautiful, but if there is a single impression they give, it is that they are not there to be your eye candy. They have their own lives–and their own ideas–to follow. You’re just along for the ride.

#2.5: Another reason I love Matt Bayne is that he responded to my LJ post asking for suggestions for this column with a link to someone else’s comic. I haven’t read much of Dicebox myself, but it certainly seems to fit the bill.

#3: Amanda Waller, of the D.C. Universe.

There is no one–no one–in the D.C. Universe more badass than Amanda Waller. She is smarter than Batman. She is tougher than Darkseid. And she is one of the most morally and humanly complex characters in fiction. She embodies a combination of deep compassion, profound ideals, and utter ruthlessness that female characters rarely get to touch–and she will fuck up your binaries and paradigms better than any other character in mainstream comics.

#4: Sharon Ford, from Baker Street, by Guy Davis

In his introduction to Honor Among Punks: The Complete Baker Street, Guy Davis wrote, “I wanted the series to have a couple of things not seen much in comics at the time: a strong female lead whose focus was her character and not her breast size, and also making it a fantasy piece for the punk scene I was into.” The series protagonist, Sharon Ford, is a middle-aged queer punk detective and one of my all-time favorite comics characters. The reverence and deliberate care with which Guy draws characters–male and female–in all their glorious and profoundly human ugliness is one the most persistent and compelling aspects of his art.

Happy National Coming Out Day! Thank you SO much to everyone who offered stories–your bravery, diversity, talent, humor, and love makes me proud all over again to be part of the queer comics community. Thanks also to the folks at Prism Comics, who posted my call for stories on their front page, and who work like crazy to support and celebrate queer comics, creators, and fans.

Originally, I had planned this as two posts–one about great coming out scenes in comics, and the other focusing on coming out stories from members of the comics community. But as I looked through what I had lined up–and heard from you–they started to bleed together.

I considered setting these up with a table of contents and target links but finally decided against it–less because I’m lazy than because every single one of these stories deserves your full attention. You don’t get to pick and choose your sexuality; you don’t get to turn a blind eye to lives and experiences; and you don’t get to choose which stories you see.

Some of these stories contain links to comics and stories off-site. Please show their creators and hosts the same respect you would be expected to on the Inside Out forum.

And, a final note to friends in and out of comics: Inside Out is not an inherently political column–but queer visibility and rights are an inherently political issue. This November, three states have ballot items defining marriage as “between one man and one woman.” If you live in Florida, California, or Arizona, please, please get out to the polls and vote NO against propositions 2, 8, and 102, respectively. And even if you don’t live in those states, take a few minutes to make a donation or some phone calls and strike a blow for equal rights:

For a long time, I was interested in comics, but could never find a space for myself in the comics culture. The one time I did visit my local store, the man behind the counter watched me the entire time as if he expected me to shoplift. Unsurprisingly, I was suitably scared off of comics after that.

So on my first day of college, I randomly ran into another freshman and we hit it off rather well. It turns out she was a huge fan of comics, and so I agreed to head back to her dorm to inspect her collection. I had, up to this point, not been out to anyone around me. As a test of the waters, I made an off-hand comment about ‘probably not meeting another gay person on campus.’ She looks at me, laughs, and says, “Well, you just met one.”

National Coming Out Day is October 11, so it’s come and gone for 2007 and it’s a long way away for 2008. It’s been a while since I felt any need to mark this holiday. But I recently got into a conversation about gay marriage on a mailing list I frequent, and I realized: for a lot of people, I’m in the closet. I’m a wife and mother, and some people—the people I’ve met recently, including my husband’s wonderful family—wouldn’t have any reason to realize that I’m queer.

So here we go. I’m a bi woman. I’m one hundred percent monogamous and one hundred percent devoted to my husband, but in the past I’ve had girlfriends as well as boyfriends. Not at the same time—that’s called being polyamorous, and it’s a different thing from being bi—I’m bi and I’m monogamous. But I’ve had girlfriends, at least one who I deeply loved, and she’s still important to me. I would never repudiate that part of who I am.

The way the dice fell for me, my soulmate is a man, and so I could marry him. But they might have fallen another way. I could have ended up in love, forever, with a woman. That’s why the issue of gay marriage is so very important to me. And also, of course, some of my dearest friends are gay, and I witness the very real and ongoing harm that our country’s unjust laws are wreaking.

I get a ton of legal benefits from being in a heterosexual marriage. That’s actually why I don’t talk more about being bi. It seems presumptive to claim a queer identity when I’m enjoying so much heterosexual status and privilege. But I came out to my friends and family a long time ago, and I’m not willing to go back into the closet.

Hearts and minds are changed when people realize that “gay” isn’t some scary person they see on TV, it’s a real person they know and love. I’m a faithful wife and a loving mother, and I’m bisexual. If you didn’t already know that about me, surprise! Maybe it won’t make a difference to you and maybe it will, but it’s something I want everybody to know. Happy Coming Out Day, late or early, and God bless us every one.

My whole coming out story is a gradual one and not all that exciting in its retelling. I have early memories of when I was four and five, having an internal monologue and knowing something about me was fundamentally different from everyone else around me. I didn’t have a word for it. Who does at that age. It wasn’t till I overheard my grandmother whom I loved dearly tell my mother she’d “better cut loose the apron strings or she’d have a sissy on her hands” that I knew there was a word for it and hearing it reinforced the understanding to never let anyone know. I was six years old.

My understanding began to clear up some when I became fascinated with watching TV shows like Batman and Robin, Green Hornet, and Star Trek. I was consumed with looking at Kato, Sulu, and Chekov, Imagine my surprise when George Takei publicly came out. Around this time I discovered comics. Unlike a lot of gay men, my coming out and sexuality don’t have a strong, early connection and identification with Wonder Woman. It’s almost heretical, right? I fall into another group because the Legion of Super Heroes became my first and lasting passion. Here was a group of teens, more guys than girls, living together without parents. It was how I came to understand the idea of a chosen family and it was an extremely important idea for a nine-year old whose family was very dysfunctional. Of course, it was impossible for comics to have any gay content back then. This is 1967 after all and the Comics Code Authority is at full strength. Like with TV shows, there were male characters I became fascinated with, especially Ultra Boy and Element Lad. Unlike TV, comics were an entirely private ritual that allowed me to gradually come to understanding that realization of being different I had as a young child.

At one point when I was a teenager my father tried to stop me from reading comics because they had nothing to do with Christianity and were therefore Satanic. He watched television for hours on end so I thought tit for tat would be good. For two or three weeks I blacked out everything in the TV Guide that wasn’t a Sunday morning religious broadcast, and got my message across. If he’d had any real idea how I’d related to comics I think he wouldn’t have relented.

The following are coming-out stories–personal and fictional–in comics form. Follow the links to read the full comics.

I Like Girls, by Erika Moen, was part of the inspiration for this post. I read this for the first time when I was in college, long before I met Erika, and it remains one of the most powerful coming-out narratives I’ve read. For another incredible comic by Erika on coming out and why visibility matters, read When We Hold Hands.

Erika writes:

“I Like Girls” was originally written as an essay for my “Memoir and Autobiography” class, freshman year of college. I had JUST gotten into my first openly gay relationship and had not yet come out to my (homophobic) mom, so the paper was kind of a mental practice/preparation for that.

The comic I didn’t start working on until my sophmore year– again, I think I did it for a class? An art class? I don’t exactly recall, but it is still the longest single comic I’ve ever completed and even though the artwork is oldy moldy it’s still the project I’m most proud of.

Everyone always asks if I came out to my mom by having her read the comic. That’d be a great story, but no, I did not. I told her face-to-face towards the end of freshman year, so she already knew (and was in denial) before I started illustrating my essay.

After four years, my mom is as supporitve as she possibly can be (Though it’s no secret she desperately would prefer me straight)

I have been a comic reader since I was a wee little boy of 8. Comics were (and still are) my safe haven from all the meanies and bullies at school who harassed me relentlessly (stupid, dumb jerks!). Growing up I always felt awkward and different and didn’t realize that my outsider feelings were because I was totally, completely, and utterly gay! In fact, I didn’t even come out until I was 26 whopping years old! “Unabashedly Billie” is my semi-autobiographical comic book story of my coming out, my first date with my now boyfriend (we’re going on eight years together) and all the internal fears and joys that went along with me discovering and accepting the real me! Yay!

Unabashedly Billie, by Brian Andersen and Preston Nesbit

proggirl:

My comics about being out appeared in Lavender magazine, but that was years ago.
My characters have been coming out their entire lives (at least the GLBT ones!).
Here’s a page I did lo these many years ago for Gay comics #25:http://www.bcholmes.org/images/foxtown/trannytowers.gif
I’ve done little comics work dealing with sexuality in recent years- maybe I’ve said what I have to say, or else I just want to think about it for a while before I say anything else.

Thank you again to everyone who contributed stories and comics–and to everyone who has stood up and spoken out about queer rights and identity, in and out of comics.

You can discuss this post–and share more stories–here (I’ll add stories to this post as/if they arrive!).